


It all catches up, always all at once

by tearoseglasses



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Non-Graphic Violence, one character stabs another but i cant write graphic stuff very well so read at your own risk, trauma is fun to write, yea my kink is being comforted when im crying what about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tearoseglasses/pseuds/tearoseglasses
Kudos: 1





	It all catches up, always all at once

“Rin, we’ll stay in Megaton for the night. It’ll be safer than sleeping out here somewhere again.”

“Alright.” She adjusts her bag as they walk over a hill, Megaton insight. Thank god. Her feet hurt so much. A rock made its way into her boot awhile back and she’s damn sure it’s cut her pretty deep at this point. At least she still has bandages and they’re close. Another day. This time, following the river. The two walk down a sandy hill and she catches a glimpse of the door the vault is hidden behind. Her stomach twists and she turns her focus to the ground beneath her. 

The doors to the city open as they walk toward them. And inside. One man in a cowboy getup tips his hat when he sees her.

“Welcome back, Missy.”

“Hello, Mr. Simms.”

“Who’s this?”

“My dad, James.”

“You found him,” Lucas smiles, walking over to them, offering a hand to James, “This is a fine young lady you’ve raised, I’m glad she found you.”

“So am I.” 

“Stay safe. The both of you.”

“We’ll try, Mr. Simms, have a good night.”

“You too, Missy.” 

Rin starts walking down the stairs. James has to catch up to her after a moment. 

“So, how do you know him?”

“I disarmed the bomb.”

“You what?”

“I disarmed the bomb.”

“You disarmed the bomb.”

“I’ve memorized the insides of those from the books in the vault. It’s an American bomb that was just. Accidentally dropped and managed not to detonate. I just had to remove the trigger. It’s still radioactive so don't get too close to it.”

“What did I do to get such a smart daughter?” James wraps an arm around her, kissing her forehead.

“You taught me to read.”

“That I did. Think Moriarty will be happy to see us?”

“No.”

“I don’t either.” They walk up to the bar and pull the door open. Moriarty stares at them. Gob and Nova grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned, kid. You found him. And all without my help, look at how grown-up you are.” He smiles. Rin grimaces back.

“Nice to see you again, Colin.”

“Hello, James. I suppose the two of you are looking for a room to stay in?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. A room is 120 caps.”

Before James can move Rin pulls out a bag of caps, throwing it at Moriarty less than gently.

He whistles, “Someone’s still angry with me.” He opens the bag, looking in it, “And someone’s been busy, Christ, lassy, what have you been doing?” He looks at her, waiting for just a moment for an answer before realizing she’s not going to give one. He chuckles and shakes his head. “You’ve got a smart kid, James.”

“I do.”

“You’ve got the room for a night.” He pockets the bag, turning and walking back to his backroom, shutting the door behind him. Rin eases up, shoulders relaxing.

“Hi, Rin.”

“Hi, Gob, you doin’ okay?”

“Better now that I’m seeing you.”

“Good. Nova?”

“We’re okay, kid. Stop worrying.”

“No.”

“When did you get a haircut?”

“When a Supermutant was holding me up by it and I cut it off to getaway. Snowflake made it look a little nicer than it was.”

“You got to Underworld?”

“Yep. Carol says she misses you.”

“I miss her too.” Gob sighs. 

“Oh, she gave me this to give to you.” Rin swings her bag to her front, unzipping one of the pockets and pulling out a letter. She walks up to the bar and holds out the letter. Gob takes it.

“Thanks, Rin.”

“No problem.”

“Rin, it’s late.”

“Yep. Sleep sounds amazing.” She follows James up the stairs and into one of the rooms. It only has one bed and a small lamp illuminating the room. “I have a sleeping bag. You take the bed, Dad.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He sits on the bed, pulling off his boots. Rin does the same, shaking out the rock. She glares at it before looking at her foot. Just a nasty blister. She pulls the compacted sleeping bag and lays on top of it. It’s not cold enough in here to get inside it. 

“Sleep well, Rin.”

“You too, Dad.” she turns away from him as he turns off the light. Once he starts snoring, she carefully gets up, checking for items in her bag; a bottle of cateye, an empty nuka cola bottle, and her knife. She picks up her bag, slowly pulling it on so nothing clangs inside.

There’s an open window just outside of the room. She climbs out of it, dropping as silently as possible outside the saloon. She pulls on the boots and walks around the backside of the saloon to the right side.

Rin watches as Moriarty walks out of his bar, looking out over Megaton. She pulls the three items out of the bag and sets it against the building. After pulling the three items out, she grips the bottle in her hand, walking farther back behind the saloon. She throws it. Moriarty turns toward the noise, narrowing his eyes. She steps further back into the shadows as he begins walking into the alleyway just opposite of her. Downing the bottle of cateye, she moves around to the back, pulling her knife out. He steps around the corner, gun out. She narrows her eyes as the glass crunches under his boot.

“Who’s there? I hear your fuckin’ breathing.” He looks around, turning his back to her. She takes a deep breath and jumps on him, wrapping her legs around his torso, wrapping her left arm around his face, jamming the knife into his chest. 

She keeps her hold as he whips around, trying to shake her off. She pulls the knife out and jams into a different spot, twisting it. He bites down on her arm, luckily she can barely feel it through the suit. She stabs him once more before he stops whipping around as much and his jaw slacks. She braces herself as he falls backward, knocking the air out of her chest. 

She gasps for air and wiggles out from under him, gulping down deep breaths. She looks at him. He’s still breathing, shallow though, and his eyes are barely open, staring at her. 

“ _You_.”

She can only manage to stare at him.

“I should never have let you step a fuckin’ foot in here or your fuckin’ father.”

She grips her knife, picking her hand up off the ground, quickly stabbing his neck before he can speak again. She closes her eyes and pulls the knife out. He gasps a few times. She opens her eyes as he stops. His chest isn’t rising anymore. She scrambles up, grabbing her bag, running away from the body. 

There’s a crack in the shell. She squeezes through it and falls to her knees on the outside. She takes a few more deep breaths before scurrying up and running away from the city. She ends up in the cliffs at the vault entrance and sinks down again. Tears rise to her eyes. 

“He was a bad person… He was a bad person… He was a bad person… He was a bad person… He was a _bad_ person…” She stares at her hands, eyes moving up her left arm to the circle of spit. She stares at it for a moment too long before she stands up and rips off the vault suit as fast as she humanly can. She stands in her underwear, staring at the vault suit. 

Hands shaking, she pulls an extra vault suit out of her bag along with a back leather jacket. She pulls both on and sinks back down. She pulls her knees to her chest, pressing back into the beginning of the cave, next to the door she came out of not that long ago. 

She has no idea how much time passes, but she climbs back through the crack and up through the window. Passing the body is a slight comfort. 

She lays back down on the sleeping bag, closing her eyes, though she does not fall asleep. 

She sits up at some point, packs up the sleeping bag, and walks out of the room, downstairs to the bar. Gob looks at her as she sits down.

“Woah, Rin, what happened to your hand?”

She looks at it. The back is covered in blood. For a minute, panic sets in before she sees the source of the blood is a cut on the back of her hand. “I, I don’t know.”

“One day you’re gonna get yourself hurt worse if you’re not careful. Here.” He hands her a wet towel, “It’s clean, don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Gob.”

“Yeah.” He takes the towel back as she wipes all the blood off. “You and your dad heading out today?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Rivet.”

“Be careful, promise?”

“Promise.” She looks over at the stairs as James walks down. “Morning, Dad?”

“You’re up early.”

“It’s not that early.”

“You’re ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She slides off the stool, “I’ll come back soon, Gob.”

“You promised.”

“I promised. Tell Nova I’ll miss her.”

“You can tell me yourself.” Nova walks down the staircase, yawning.

“I’ll miss you, Nova.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll miss you too.”

Rin and James walk out of the saloon. It’s dawn, the town still in shadows. They walk down the winding steps and out of the town. She sighs, more comfortable the farther away from the town they get. Gob’ll probably find the body. Whether he’ll suspect her or not is another story. Nova will. No matter what. She will. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Glad to be out of that bar.”

“Moriarty did do anything to you, right?”

“No. Other than being a dick.”

“Unsurprising. You threw those caps at him pretty hard.”

“Yeah, he deserves any bruise he got from that.”

“He probably does.” 

They continue into the city, following the river. Luckily, they’re far away enough from it that any mutants stay away from them and no raiders are close. The sun is almost at its setting point when the Monument comes into view. 

“Rin, why don’t you go to the monument and get comfortable while I go get Dr. Li?”

“Sounds good.” She separates from him, walking off the main road and over a few old bridges to the door into the monument. It’s locked. She pulls a key from her bag and unlocks the door. The lights are still on the inside. Thank god. She spent all that time getting the lights working again so nothing could jump out at her, good to know she did a good job. 

The rooms are down on the lower levels. She walks down, finding one that looks like it was never touched and walking in. It’s bright enough in the room that she sits on the bed and pulls a book out of her bag. She sheds the leather jacket and pulls out an old lab coat, way way too big for her, warm, and comfortable. 

After a while of reading her book, a knock on the metal door takes her attention away from it. James is standing in the doorway.

“I see you’ve found your way around.”

“And I fixed the lights.”

“Yes, it’s much easier to see than when I came in here last.” He looks down at her shoulder, “What happened?”

“What?” She looks down at her arm. Blood is seeping through the lab coat. “Oh. I don’t know. Maybe a cut opened up.”

“Come on, I’ll patch it up.”

“Yeah.” She climbs off the bed and follows him into another room, an infirmary. 

“Take off the lab coat and let me see.”

She sits up on the observation table and pulls the lab coat off her shoulders. James turns back around and stares at it.

“Rin, a cut? This is much worse than a cut. And it looks infected.”

“Oh.”

“How do you even manage to survive out there, Rin?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“Well, you should be more careful.” He takes a breath, “You should have stayed in the Vault.”

She purses her lips, looking away from James. He sighs and they sit in silence as he finishes cleaning and bandaging a wound. Once he pulls his hands away, she slides off the medical bed and starts walking. 

“Rin.”

She stops. 

“That was the same look you gave me when I told you you weren't ready to set Paul’s wrist. But a wrist is very different from the wasteland.”

“I found you, didn’t I?” 

James watches her walk around a corner and out of view. He cleans up the bed, throwing blood-covered towels in a bucket.

“So. She looks like you, but she acts like her Mother.” Dr. Li stands in the doorway. James glances up at her.

“Only fitting.”

“Oh shut up, James. She walked into Rivet City with her name being said on the Radio.”

“So you’re saying I have no right to worry about her?”

“No, of course not. But have you asked how she managed to leave the vault? You were so positive there was no way she’d be able to get out after you. But here she is. In a lab coat that is 4 sizes too big. With a broken nose, and a split lip and eyebrow.”

“She knows nothing about the wasteland.”

“She obviously does.”

“Madison-”

“I’m not going to argue with you over this, James.” 

He watches her go before straightening, dropping the last towel into the bucket, and walking out of the infirmary. He walks deeper into the monument, stopping as he hears a gunshot and shattering glass. Rin. He runs down into one last set of staircases and through a doorway. A bullet whizzes past him, hitting an empty nuka cola bottle. 

Rin doesn’t seem to notice him. “Still pulling right…” She pulls a roll of tools from her bag and sits, working on the sight of the gun. He hadn’t even noticed the lab coat. It’s from the vault. It’s not one of hers and he took his. 

“It’s Jonas’s coat.” She doesn’t look up from the gun. 

“What?”

“Jonas. It's his coat.”

“Did he give it to you?”

“No. I took it-”

“Rin-”

“-off his chair after finding him dead.”

“What?”

“They killed him. After you left. Because he wouldn’t tell them anything. The Overseer finally broke. He’d always been a fucking dick, using Butch to do his fucking dirty work, threatening Amata when she came and woke me up before the guards could get to me, and he just snapped. I couldn’t have stayed in the vault. They wanted to fucking hang me.”

“Rin-”

“And then I was out. And Moriarty tried to get me to go, to go solicit someone just so he would tell me where you went. Then Gob and Nova helped me at the risk of their own necks. And you know what I did to repay them?”

“Rin-”

She looks down the sight of the gun, shooting another bottle. It’s straight. “I killed him. Last night. I lured him behind his own bar and stabbed him four times-” 

“Catherine!” 

She drops the gun, eyes shooting up to look at him. The slight look of horror on his face is gut-wrenching. She tenses. Oh. 

“I… I killed them all…” Her hands shake, “I got Officer Gomez killed because he tried to help me. Amata and Butch could be dead. Moriarty was a bad person. But all those people in the simulation, I killed them.” She looks at the ground, “I killed them all. It’s my fault. _All of this is my fault. All of it. Because of me_.”

James walks over to her, carefully kicking the gun out of the way so he can sit in front of her. He gathers her up, pulling her into a hug. She wraps her arms around him, hiding her face in his coat. 

“Rin?”

“What?”

“It’s not your fault that they died… And it is especially not your fault that your mother died.” He pulls her closer as she starts to cry. “It is not your fault.” He looks down and pulls her head away from his chest, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “We haven’t had to do this for a long time. Not since Butch started picking on you.” He smiles as she laughs between sobs and hiccups. 

“Butch apologized for that.” She sniffs. “When I was running out. I helped him get his mom away from some roaches and he gave me his jacket.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I wish he hadn’t, I wouldn’t miss him.” She blinks as tears fill her eyes. 

“Come on,” James lets her put her head back on his chest, “It’s okay, Rin, You’re okay.”

“I miss them so much.”

“I know, sweetie.”


End file.
